Zombie Diseases: A Cold Death

L’uomo ha combattuto contro batteri e virus da quando è apparso per la prima volta sulla Terra. Con il tempo si è evoluto ed è diventato resistente ai virus, ma ora alcuni si stanno risvegliando e potrebbero attaccarci di nuovo.

Bandera UK
Daniel Francis

Speaker (UK accent)

Aggiornato il giorno

Thawing permafrost in Greenland where global warming is of increasing concern.

Ascolta questo articolo

Stampare

At this time of the year, people are complaining about the cold. However, it might be better if the weather were actually colder… and continued to get colder every year! Warnings about climate warming tell us how coastal cities could disappear under water, and how drier weather could affect food and water supplies. However, experts are now warning about another possible danger, coming not from the air but from our planet’s icy wastes!  

MELTING ice

Climate change is melting permafrost around the world frozen for thousands of years. The Arctic permafrost alone covers an area double the size of the US. The temperature in the Arctic Circle is rising three times faster than the rest of the world, exposing older and older layers of permafrost.  

Perfect for Viruses

Permafrost is perfect for preserving microbes and viruses. It is cold and dark, with no oxygen. Bacteria can live for very long periods of time, even millions of years. Diseases sleeping in the ice are now waking up. Nature, abused by man, and possibly looking for revenge, is opening a Pandora’s Box of zombie viruses. Permafrost could contain viruses, in frozen human bodies, that have caused global epidemics in the past. And some of those bodies go back to Neanderthal times, with viruses that we may never have seen before. 

Anthrax Infection

In August 2016, in Siberia in the Arctic Circle, a twelve-year-old boy died, and twenty people ended up in hospital, after an anthrax infection. The anthrax came from a reindeer which had died seventy-five years before, and was then trapped in permafrost. In a heatwave, the reindeer was exposed, and the anthrax entered the soil and then the food chain. The danger is that this example may be repeated on a much greater scale.

‘Zombie’ Viruses

Experts are worried. Will our antibiotics be effective against these ‘zombie’ viruses from the past? In 2016, microbes from four million years ago were found in Lechuguilla Cave in New Mexico three hundred metres underground. The bacteria was resistant to 70 per cent of antibiotics. From 1300 to 1870, the world experienced a ‘Little Ice Age’. The world may be in need of another mini-ice age. And the sooner the better.

Creationism: Was Darwin Wrong?
iStock

Culture

Creationism: Was Darwin Wrong?

E se Darwin si fosse sbagliato? E se l’universo fosse stato davvero creato da un atto divino (nel giro di sei giorni) non più di 10.000 anni fa? È quello che credono 4 americani su 10. La teoria del creazionismo sta prendendo sempre più piede e viene insegnata in parecchie scuole.

Talitha Linehan

A Short Story: Irish Courage
Istock

Fiction

A Short Story: Irish Courage

Un adolescente irlandese pensa di aver bisogno di alcol per trovare il coraggio di innamorarsi, ma scopre che gli serve solo la fiducia in se stesso.

Talitha Linehan

More in Explore

TODAY’S TOP STORIES

Oxford v. Cambridge: The Boat Race

Culture

Oxford v. Cambridge: The Boat Race

Oxford e Cambridge sono da secoli simbolo di eccellenza accademica, ma la loro rivalità sportiva è altrettanto famosa. Scopriamo come si preparano alla celebre regata annuale sul Tamigi immergendoci nel cuore di questa tradizione.

Melita Cameron-Wood